Tories tipping in to the red...
MILLIONS of those over 50 who, across the years, have trudged to the ballot boxes to vote Conservative presume that if elected, the Tories will abide by the basic principles of conservatism. There are several, but let me evoke just four.
One: small government. Meaning as little as is feasibly possible, in an orderly state, of self-bloating, pointless, expensive and exhausting-tocomply-with bureaucracy.
Two, efficient and funded aspects the great majority of us regard as vital – armed forces, safe streets, secure prisons, national health cover and good schools.
At three I would put the lowest taxes commensurate with the needs listed above.
And at four a firm sorry-but-no attitude to vanity projects and white elephants.
But Boris Johnson – perhaps intoxicated by the exuberance of his recent stunning victory, as constituencies in the traditionally Labour North switched from chaos-riven and discredited Labour Marxism to gave him a chance with a rock-solid majority – seems to be heading the opposite way.
There are plans for a spending spree to make a drunken matelot on shore leave blush.
This is all supposed to be to reward and indulge the North. But northerners are very penny-wise and as opposed to lavish spending as southern taxpayers.
We all accept that money has to be spent, but the amounts in prospect for the BoJo splurge are mind-boggling.
The “urgents” are armed forces, prisons and NHS. We know the police no longer own the streets – the gangs do. And this is not all down to Labour – the Tories have been in power for a decade.
Our allies all (not just the Americans) tell us that letting the Chinese government-linked cybergiant Huawei into the heart of our future 5G communication is a helluva gamble and there are alternatives. So why do it? And there is more. The word “billion” (as in pounds) is being thrown around like confetti at a wedding.
Almost as an afterthought BoJo suggests that if we have a spare afternoon we could throw a roadbridge across the Irish Sea. About £20billion – to start with.
AND looming over it all – HS2 at £106billion – so far. I know the decision has apparently been taken but consider the evidence. When a project starts being costed in the 30 billions, rises to 56 billion, then leaps to 106 billion; when it starts with increased speed from London to Birmingham as its raison d’être, then switches to increased capacity, then switches to interconnectivity across a web of northern cities; and when one former senior executive after another, now all resigned, denounces it, the odour of white elephant or vanity project becomes over-powering. And it is.
All possible alternatives are contemptuously swept aside. Not a project-costing study in sight.
So how are we going to pay for this vast expenditure? Do we have the wherewithal in a neglected government drawer? No we do not.
Either we have to borrow sums to force today’s grandchildren to pay it back all their lives or we have to raise taxes to the rafters. Early talk of the latter has begun and the hardest hit in any campaign of hiked taxes will be the traditional Tory loyalist – the elderly.
None of the above has the remotest thing to do with traditional Conservative values or expectations. Too many gambles, too many lavish promises that pie-in-the-sky promises will simply come to pass because BoJo says they will amid talks of “vision” and “enterprise”.
I fear when the cost comes home to bite, that groaning beast of burden, the taxpayer, may rise, ballot paper in hand, and kick Master Johnson in the gaudeamus. In English that is “the oh-be-joyfuls” – but BoJo speaks Latin anyway.